‘It wasn’t a case of being allowed. I was allowed almost anything I wanted. And when I did get under my own steam just see what happened! He was sent with that mission to Singapore and I stayed in Grenoble and took a course at the University. He was delayed and delayed … and I found out afterwards that he was wretchedly at a loose end. And then … it was while he was there … he met Kitty.’

Lacklander closed his well-kept doctor’s hand over the lower half of his face and behind it made an indeterminate sound.

‘Well,’ Rose said, ‘it turned out as badly as it possibly could, and it goes on getting worse, and if I’d been there I don’t think it would have happened.’

‘Why not? He’d have been just as likely to meet her. And even if he hadn’t, my heavenly and darling Rose, you cannot be allowed to think of yourself as a twister of the tail of fate.’

‘If I’d been there …’

‘Now look here!’ said Lacklander. ‘Look at it like this. If you removed yourself to Nunspardon as my wife, he and your stepmother might get together in a quick comeback.’

‘Oh, no,’ Rose said. ‘No, Mark. There’s not a chance of that.’

‘How do you know? Listen. We’re in love. I love you so desperately much it’s almost more than I can endure. I know I shall never meet anybody else who could make me so happy and, incredible though it may seem, I don’t believe you will either. I won’t be put off, Rose. You shall marry me and if your father’s life here is too unsatisfactory, well, we’ll find some way of improving it. Perhaps if they part company he could come to us.’

‘Never! Don’t you see? He couldn’t bear it. He’d feel sort of extraneous.’

‘I’m going to talk to him. I shall tell him I want to marry you.’

‘No, Mark, darling! No … please …’

His hand closed momentarily over hers. Then he was on his feet and had taken up the basket of roses. ‘Good evening, Mrs Cartarette,’ he said. ‘We’re robbing your garden for my grandmother. You’re very much ahead of us at Hammer with your roses.’

Kitty Cartarette had turned in by the green archway and was looking thoughtfully at them.

IV

The second Mrs Cartarette did not match her Edwardian name. She did not look like a Kitty. She was so fair that without her make-up she would have seemed bleached. Her figure was well-disciplined and her face had been skilfully drawn up into a beautifully cared-for mask. Her greatest asset was her acquired inscrutability. This, of itself, made a femme fatale of Kitty Cartarette. She had, as it were, been manipulated into a menace. She was dressed with some elaboration and, presumably because she was in the garden, she wore gloves.